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For Stephen Colbert to joust with Jeff Bezos is a bit like Don Quixote
taking on the windmills.

All the same, the Comedy Central host, who is soon to take over
for David Letterman on CBS’s The Late Show, has enough
pop culture relevance to at least move the needle on public
perception of the ecommerce giant’s tactics.

This week, Colbert railed against Amazon for raising prices and
delaying shipments for books published by select publishing
houses -- in particular, Hachette, which publishes
Colbert’s own books. “Now, I am not just mad at Amazon. I
am mad Prime, because I have just found out they are deterring
customers from buying books by Stephen Colbert,” Colbert said.
“Amazon is playing hardcover.”

The pinnacle of Colbert’s comedy routine was when Colbert opened
a box mailed from himself -- and, allegedly, the other authors
miffed at Hachette -- to Amazon and “inside” there were two
middle fingers, gesturing profanity towards the ecommerce
platform. “Watch out Bezos, because this means war.”

In addition to messing with the delivery of Hachette books,
Amazon has taken away the ability of Hachette authors to be
pre-ordered. Colbert brought on Sherman Alexie, the successful
and popular author of several works of fiction that explore the
Native American experience, to talk about why that hurts new book
releases. “Pre-publicity is everything. The fortunes of a movie
are determined before it ever screens in a theater. And the
fortunes of a book are determined before it ever hits the
shelves. Pre-publicity and presales determine the success of a
book,” Alexie says.

Amazon has said that the reason it has eliminated pre-ordering as
an option is due to the contractual terms and negotiations
between Amazon and Hachette. “Suppliers get to decide the terms
under which they are willing to sell to a retailer. It's
reciprocally the right of a retailer to determine whether the
terms on offer are acceptable and to stock items accordingly,”
Amazon said in a statement. “A
retailer can feature a supplier's items in its advertising and
promotional circulars, ‘stack it high’ in the front of the
store, keep small quantities on hand in the back aisle, or not
carry the item at all, and bookstores and other retailers do
these every day.”

Amazon said that its priority was the experience of the customer.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant also said it would fund half
of a pool of money to go to authors who feel their royalties have
been disrupted by the change in ordering and stocking books if
Hachette would fund the other half. “We hope Hachette takes us up
on it,” Amazon said.

In the meantime, Colbert has put a California, a debut
novel by author Edan Lepucki, up for sale on the Colbert Nation
website. Alexie praises the post-apocalyptic novel, but,
due to recent rule changes by Amazon, the book is not
available for pre-order on Amazon. “We are going to prove that
I can sell more books than Amazon,” Colbert said. Colbert also
released a downloadable page of stickers that say, “I didn’t
buy it on Amazon,” which he appeals to shoppers to affix to
their purchases made through the Colbert website.